Surgery is over!

Today was rough. We are pretty emotionally drained. Emily's headache episode this morning continued even on the way to the hospital and she threw up three times in the car. Once we got there, they whisked us away and immediately gave her some Versed (sp?) to relax her and got her hooked up to the IV. She was pretty funny once she got that medicine in her system and we all had some good laughs by then. It did help break up the mood some and that was kind of nice. Emily was taking a damp paper towel and acting like it was an elephant's trunk. Then she took it and tried to make a paper airplane out of it. It was just really silly.

When it was close to time for her to be taken away, it was starting to get very tense. I think Emily knew that the time was getting closer, and so did we. Dr. Canady briefly stuck her head in the room and asked if we had any questions. I then asked her how long it should take. She said about an hour and a half. I also asked about it being more difficult because of her slit ventricles. Dr. Canady was very quick to the point and said, "Oh, yeah. It is going to be way more difficult." I just said okay and said that I didn't want to know details. That was when my stomach started to really turn. It was just a few minutes later when they were ready to wheel her away. We were only able to walk with her a short ways until they got to the double doors of the operating room. This was the first time ever that Emily has cried when she was taken away. In fact, she started crying and saying that she was scared and that she didn't want to go. She didn't want us to leave her. We tried our hardest not to lose our composure and to reassure her that everything would be fine. It was one of the hardest things that I've ever had to do, and I've had to do a lot of hard things in the past six and a half years. We heard her cries as they took her through the double doors and Rob and I just lost it in the hall. We cried together for a little bit and then made our way down the hall to the waiting room. We quickly had to get in control because we knew that my mom and dad had Ethan in the room and we didn't want him to see us so broken up.

After the surgery was over, Dr. Canady came to talk to us and she told us that Emily did fine. She did have to make a new incision instead of going in through her old scar. She said that the shunt valve was working okay, but the catheter was what was blocked. She had to replace the part of catheter that goes down into her brain. Let's just hope that this one lasts longer.

Emily got to go to a regular room and not the PICU this time which was great. She was in quite a bit of pain when she first came out of surgery, but she is already feeling great right now. She is watching tv, eating snacks, and coloring pictures this evening. Now that this day is behind us, I can finally relax and take a deep breath. I know we still have to worry about infection right now, but the chances of that are not high. Our biggest risk was during surgery itself.

When she first got to her room, Nana, Papa, Grandma and Ethan were all waiting there for us. As soon as she saw Ethan, she started reaching her arms out to him to give him a hug. I love how much they love each other. :)

I hope that Emily has a good night and I am even hoping that she might get to go home very soon. We have had enough of hospitals for the summer!!!!! I'll post another update in the morning and let everybody know how Emily did through the night.